I see a couple of common questions every day on Experts-Exchange and TechNet Forums. The common theme in each question is that the answer isn’t easily found in one place. As in this post, Microsoft documents the process of demoting a DC in seven different Knowledge Base articles. The next few posts will cover these common questions and the resources to solve them.

How can I safely demote a domain controller?

It depends on your environment. Make a list of every role/feature running on the soon to be demoted DC. You will need to migrate these roles to other member servers/domain controllers. To make life easier, here is a short list to get you started with links to documentation.